Compline Choir

What is it about choral music that makes me feel like a ball of sound-light is breaking out of my chest, piercing my loneliness with the pure power of its melodic force? When I confessed my newfound love of choral music to one of my friends, she told me about the Compline Service at St. Mark's. We went together one Sunday and lay out on a blanket near the altar. The all-male chorus shuffled into the room quietly and opened their books and began to sing. In that moment I discovered the singular pleasure of imagining the sound waves of interwoven human voices soaring up and bouncing around the reredos and the rose window as all that glass blushed pink, then orange, and then dark blue as the sun sank behind the Olympics. Something about the combination of the architecture, the fellowship, and the music gave me a little peek into the ineffable.